ASTRONOMY

3

BINOCULARS FOR NIGHT SKY ASTRONOMY USE

Most people don't think of using ordinary binoculars for viewing the night sky. They have
many advantages besides being light, portable, see high
clarity images and easy to keep
clean. Binoculars are also quite cheap for a relatively large pair compared to buying a
telescope. A good pair of 7 x 50 binoculars
(7 being the magnification and 50 being the
size of the front lenses in millimeters) start at around $130.

It's a good idea to use a tripod with binoculars to steady them. They cost between $50
and $200 plus a bracket which is around $25. The supported
binoculars give greater
detail in the images because they are not wobbling about. Also, it doesn't take long for
binoculars to get heavy in your hands after holding
them steady for a while, especially if
they're a large pair. Ensure if you buy a pair they have a fitting which can be fixed onto a tripod,
as some do not.
Binoculars can be bought in sizes up to 120mm in diameter and magnifications
of up to 70x or more, the images are awesome! Please remember, larger, higher
magnificaion
binoculars need a heavier, more stable mount or tripod or keep the images steady.

Binoculars are great for wide field, bright observations of the emission and diffuse nebula
in our Milky Way Galaxy. Comets are brillant through
binoculars as a telescope doesn't
have a enough field of view to fit much of their tails in. Many faint galaxies outside our own
can be seen with binoculars. The
binocualr's extremely wide field of view makes galaxies
easy to find. This also makes them a great aid to telescopes for locating the object first and
then the object
can be viewed through the telescope after it's been found. Finally, of course,
the Moon is another great target for binoculars.

So, what can't they do? Binoculars extremely low magnifications (7x - 15x) won't be enough
bring up any details on the planets, however they will see the
major planets as disks and
movements of their moons as points of light. Their magnification will also not be enough
to see double stars, globular clusters or
details in nebulas which only high magnification
will do. Still, binoculars will see hundreds and hundreds of objects for a small price tag.
It is possible to
buy larger binoculars with the magnification going up to 70x or more. This
will see the double stars which aren't to close together, the globular clusters
and details
in nebula, but still willl not be high enough to see the details on planets.